


I told that devil to take you back

by fancywaffles



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst and Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Partners to Lovers, Road Trips, SORRY I KILLED GLENN AGAIN, Supernatural Elements, Sylvix Week (Fire Emblem), They/Them Pronouns for My Unit | Byleth, Winchester Coping Mechanisms (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26574310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancywaffles/pseuds/fancywaffles
Summary: Sylvain and Felix keep to the family business of Demon Hunting, with quite a few bumps along the way. That whole inconvenient Apocalypse thing for one.(or, this is SPN-Lite, Sylvix edition)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 25
Kudos: 81
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	I told that devil to take you back

**Author's Note:**

> This is... the most ridiculous thing I have ever written. I have seen all of SPN, but am not a super fan (my favorite episodes are the Scooby Doo one and where Dean talks to dogs), so please do not throw things at me if I taint it. I mostly wanted to capture the balance of ridiculousness and overblown drama angst. Also you don't need to have watched SPN to read this--I bastardized it like... a lot.
> 
> Title is from Jill Andrews - Tell that Devil.

The clouds were painted in blood red and the kind of orange that should only exist in a kid’s fruit drink. Beneath the clouds was an endless void that was leeching color and life out of everything around it. There were a lot of important things around it. Like what was left of Felix’s family.

“It’s not that bad,” Sylvain said, next to him, tilting his head to get a better look at an actual portal to hell.

“It’s the _Apocalypse_.”

Sylvain shrugged casually. “Yeah, but other than that.”

**XXXXX**

**BEFORE**

**XXXXX**

“We’re not all going to fit,” Glenn said. He was referring to the car like it was his own, when he was actually stealing the Gautier car—that Sylvain referred so obnoxious to as the ‘Lady of Ruin.’ Felix was relieved he didn’t call it something in relation to its model name, which was a Chevy Impala _Lance_ -class. There were too many dick joke possibilities.

It was a sedan. It was a black, boring, front-heavy sedan that Sylvain also called ‘sweetheart’ and ‘baby’ like it was his pet or girlfriend.

“I’m… I’m not sure we should be driving this,” Dimitri said, nervously. Finally a sane person in the mix.

“You won’t be driving,” Sylvain said, “Glenn is. Because _someone_ thinks fifteen isn’t old enough to drive their own car.”

“It’s your parents car,” Ingrid pointed out.

Sylvain threw his hands up in the air. “No. It’s mine. Miklan didn’t want it, because it wasn’t new and shiny so I have dibs.”

“Dibs,” Edelgard, Dimitri’s intimidating step-sister, said slowly like it was a foreign language.

“Exactly, princess,” Sylvain said, with a smile that she didn’t return.

Glenn clapped his hands to get Sylvain’s attention. “Hey. I’m _only_ driving you as a favor, but we’re not going to get everyone in the back.”

Dimitri looked at Felix and then Edelgard and then back at Glenn. They all _really_ wanted to see this movie. It was rare all of them agreed on one thing like this. Felix was sure Glenn wanted to see it too—he was full of it. He’d been trying to act more mature since Dad had taken him on his last Hunting trip, as if that made him an adult and not barely older than them.

“Someone could sit on someone’s lap?” Dimitri suggested.

“No.” “Not happening.” Both Edelgard and Ingrid said at the same time in Sylvain’s direction.

“Hey, His Blondness over there suggested it,” Sylvain said, defensively. “Besides, maybe I don’t want anyone to sit in my—”

“Shotgun,” Ingrid said.

They all made a face, because none of them had thought of that first and Glenn grinned at Ingrid. “That’s my girl. Fair’s fair, chumps,” he said to the rest of them, because he was stupid. “Figure it out, or we’re leaving without you.”

Ingrid stuck her tongue out at them over her shoulder as she and Glenn walked to the car. Sylvain and Edelgard both responded with different rude gestures. It ended up taking them five minutes to decide—more accurately they hadn’t decided by then and then Glenn _started_ the car so they scrambled into the backseat of the Lance.

So of course, even though she was smaller and shorter than him, Edelgard ended up in a seat and Felix ended up crammed halfway onto Sylvain and Dimitri’s laps like he was an infant and not thirteen.

“You gotta get faster, Fe,” Glenn said, as he started to back out the car. “A Demon’s gonna eat your face with those kind of reflexes.”

“I’ll eat your face,” Felix grumbled to himself and ignored Sylvain and Dimitri doing terrible jobs at covering their responding laughs.

**XXX**

Sylvain had never been to a Hunter funeral before. He knew he’d have to go to one eventually, it was how things went. He never thought the first one he’d go to would be for Glenn and Dimitri’s parents.

Their bodies were covered and didn’t look like bodies at all. Sylvain had overheard enough to know why they were covered and thought maybe they didn’t look like bodies beneath that either.

“Dimitri,” Rodrigue said, encouraging Sylvain’s newly orphaned friend to throw salt over the bodies so their vengeful spirits wouldn’t come back to haunt them all. Dimitri shook his head and Rodrigue sighed and looked towards Felix. “Felix did you…”

Sylvain hadn’t talked to Felix since the hunt in Duscur had gone completely off the rails and Demons had overwhelmed Lambert, the king of hunters, his wife, and their entire Hunting party. Glenn was the only reason Dimitri was still here.

Sylvain remembered Felix trying to hide his frustrated cry when he wasn’t allowed to go on the trip, even though he was the same age as Dimitri. His eyes were bone dry now. Felix grabbed a pile of salt and dropped it over the bodies and then stepped back.

Sylvain couldn’t look when they lit the pyre. He turned away, ignoring the acrid smell of rot and flame and found someone who _was_ crying. He threw an arm over Ingrid’s shoulder and she responded by burying her head in his chest and sobbing. It was selfish that he felt better letting her cry on him. It made him feel useful in a useless situation.

It felt like there was something other than the smell of bodies burning in the air—things were turning.

There’d be a lot more of these funerals if they didn’t get it together.

**XXX**

“Dimitri!” Felix screamed, still getting no response. Felix tried pulling him off the already dying harpy, but Dimitri ignored him. Dimitri hadn’t even used his weapon. He’d torn its wing off like he was shredding paper and kept punching it. Punching in the throat, the face—repeatedly until his knuckles were wet with demon blood.

Felix called his name again and again and got nowhere. He grabbed his shoulder and Dimitri shrugged him off so hard he fell backwards. He kept beating the corpse. Dimitri was like a brick wall. A brick wall with brick fists that was punching the creature’s skull in with a smile on his face.

Fuck.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

“Didn’t think a town as small as Remire would have such a high population of harpies,” Felix’s father said later. Completely ignoring the blank eyed stare of Felix’s best friend and their permanent house guest.

“They don’t now,” Dimitri said. He sounded pleasant. Normal.

Felix hadn’t minded having Dimitri with them at first. He’d been glad to have someone after Glenn… was gone. It was too quiet in the house without the third person. And Felix’s father… his _father_ had said that how Glenn went was the best way to die—for a Hunter was to go out like that was the right way. That Felix should be proud.

Dimitri was supposed to be the third they were missing. He was supposed to make Felix’s father snap out of it—he was supposed to be Dimitri, skilled, but kind—not—

All Felix could see were those hands, beating through a skull like it was styrofoam—a manic smile on his face.

Rodrigue nodded, adjusted his shotgun, and clapped Dimitri on the back with his freehand. “We should head back.”

“I’m walking,” Felix said, ignoring his father’s protests. The motel was only a mile away and they’d taken care of the harpy problem. If he had to get into the car with Dimitri right now he was going to throw up.

“Felix!” his father called, but didn’t make any additional effort to stop him.

Good. Felix thought. He clenched his fists, but the images kept coming back. She wasn’t… she wasn't even violent. They were a nest in a graveyard. They’d taken out the mother-harpy, so there wasn’t anything else left to do but _clean_ kills. Not… whatever the hell that was.

Maybe Glenn wasn’t the only one gone.

Felix stepped to the side of the road and threw up anyway.

**XXX**

“Shit,” Sylvain said, putting down the beer he wasn’t technically supposed to have. Garreg Mach, being a bar that was basically for Hunters, it was a little more lax on the drinking age. “Isn’t that Edelgard?”

Ingrid looked up from the beer she also wasn’t supposed to be drinking and narrowed her eyes in that direction. “It looks like it. Huh, I thought her uncle didn’t want her getting involved in Hunter business. Do you think Dimitri knows?”

“Doubt it,” Sylvain said. “He’d have said something, right?”

“Maybe,” Ingrid said, warily. “Maybe she’s here to train with the Archbishop.”

Sylvain groaned. “Don’t call Rhea that. She is basically queen of the Hunters and incredibly hot and badass and you make me feel like I’m going to get my knuckles rapped when you say that.”

“When has that _ever_ stopped you?” Ingrid asked, a mixture of annoyance and maybe a tiny hint of amusement.

Sylvain shrugged and turned back towards her. “Hey, you hear about that old Hunter guy that drifted into town? Jeralt?”

“The Blade Breaker?” Ingrid said in awe.

Why did she _have_ to use the stupid nicknames? Sylvain was going to die the day someone called him something that stupid. Or he’d die before they did. Always hard to tell.

“Yeah. Apparently he and his kid ran into Rhea on a Bael Hunt and they’re old friends. She’s pushing to recruit him and his kid I guess.”

Ingrid frowned. Her brow creased into a matching downward curve, as she lowered her voice. “I don’t know if I agree that this Hunter network is a good idea. We’ve been in small groups since the first Ten Elite Hunters were established and went their separate ways.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain agreed. “Nests are easier to take down for a reason.”

He noticed Felix and Dimitri walk in and waved them over. Felix looked about as grumpy as usual. He pretty much threw himself into a seat next to Sylvain, leaving Mister Manners with the seat across.

“Did you know about Edelgard?” Ingrid asked Dimitri when he sat.

Dimitri nodded distractedly, looking over at his stepsister. She clearly saw him, glancing over briefly with those pale violet eyes of hers, but wasn’t giving him the time of day. Harsh. “She won’t talk to me.”

“Want me to try talking to her?” Sylvain asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“No,” Dimitri said, seriously. He drew his eyes away from Edelgard and sighed. “Rhea said there’s a lead on a lich nest to the west of here. Felix and I were thinking of heading out that way, if you’d like to join us.”

“Only if I can drive,” Sylvain said, jostling Felix a little, who only frowned at him. He missed making Felix laugh.

“You’re drinking,” Felix said. “And I hate your car.”

“Why must you insult my darling like that? I don’t insult your…” Sylvain struggled for something Felix had that he cared about that much, but mostly he had guns and knives. “Anyway,” Sylvain continued, holding his beer up. “Barely touched this. It’s disgusting.” He just liked the fact that he _could_ have it. Any bit of freedom he grabbed out of the Gautier’s strict rule of order house was something he’d cling to. Especially if it was rule-breaking.

“He hasn’t,” Ingrid said, backing him up— _then_ they believed him. Sylvain was sometimes less than perfectly cautious, but he wasn’t reckless enough to drink and drive and definitely not drink and Hunt.

“I… I’m going to ask if El wants to come,” Dimitri said, standing up.

“She’s not going to,” Felix said.

“She might,” Dimitri said back. He frowned and hesitated for a second, before steeling himself and turning to walk towards her. Felix’s glare could’ve melted holes in his back.

“I thought you two worked it out,” Sylvain said, lowering his voice. Ingrid out of politeness pretended not to eavesdrop since she could hear everything without making an effort.

Felix didn’t look away from Dimitri’s back. “There’s nothing to work out. We have a job to do, so we’ll do it.”

“Yeah, but, Felix, come on.”

“Come on what?” Felix said, turning his head around to glare at Sylvain. “I’ve told you, I’ve told my old man, I’ve told _everyone_ what he’s like on hunts and they keep sending him out on them.”

“Can you blame him?” Ingrid asked softly, no longer pretending not to hear them.

“Yes,” was all Felix said, before Dimitri dragged himself back, looking defeated.

“Ah, you mentioned driving, Sylvain?” Dimitri said, giving it his best strained smile.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

Sylvain made sure to play the most obnoxious songs he could think of on the drive there. During the fifth round of Adam Levine’s crooning, the annoyed bitching started, which at least got everyone talking like normal. He missed their version of normal.

“Hey!” Sylvain snapped once they’d stopped. “Don’t put that on in Ruin!” They’d started taking out the perfumed mix of ‘sweat socks left out in a swamp’ scented herbs which let them hide their human-deliciousness from liches’ bony noses. 

He got an eye roll from Ingrid and a polite, “Apologies, Sylvain” from Dimitri, before they got out of the car. Felix remained stoically in the back seat with his arms crossed.

“Not in the mood to hunt today?” Sylvain asked.

“Whatever,” Felix said, which wasn’t a response, but was as much as Sylvain had been getting out of him lately. Ever since Glenn… Felix had stuffed all the emotions and heart he’d worn on his sleeve inwards.

“You can wait in the car,” Sylvain offered. He turned around in his seat so Felix could see he was serious—but he still got glared at. It wasn’t hard to guess what his sour mood was about, he’d been glaring at the back of Dimitri’s head the entire ride here. “You know he’s trying.”

“No,” Felix said, angry, but also Sylvain thought a little tired. “He’s not.” Then he got out of the car and slammed the door shut.

“Don’t _abuse_ her like that!” Sylvain said.

“Sorry,” Felix muttered, and then started spreading that gross smelling crap on himself too.

Sylvain sighed and apologized to his baby, before getting out of the car and preparing himself to be bathed in eaux de sweat socks.

**XXX**

Felix wasn’t sure if watching Sylvain eat or watching Sylvain flirt was more disgusting. Somehow, while shoving a double cheeseburger down his throat and winking at the waitress who’d brought it, he’d managed to accomplish both.

“What?” Sylvain asked, mouth still full.

“You’re going to have a heart attack by the time you’re thirty,” Felix said. Not to mention it was completely unfair he could still look like that when he ate like that _and_ barely kept up a regular training schedule. All Felix did was workout and train and he still couldn’t put on the muscle mass he wanted.

Sylvain snorted and wiped some sauce off his mouth with his thumb. “So cute you think I’m making it to thirty.”

“Don’t,” Felix said.

Sylvain stared at him and then shrugged an apology. “Forgot,” he said and then swallowed finally. “That means you don’t make it to thirty right? Blood oath and all.”

“It was spit,” Felix said. “And I don’t think it counts.”

“It counts,” Sylvain said, a little too seriously—then he grinned and snorted, before going back to inhaling his burger.

Minus the disgusting slurping and Sylvain’s voracious appetite for getting both of their waitresses’ numbers, Felix felt more relaxed than he had in days. It was easier not having to watch Dimitri constantly or try to convince his old man _once again_ to stop letting him on Hunts. ‘Hunting is the only therapy we have left.’ His old man said when he’d suggested it .

Fuck, he couldn’t wait to get out of here. One more year and he wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. One more year and he could… Felix sighed.

“What’s up?” Sylvain asked, a french fry halfway to his mouth.

“Nothing,” Felix said.

Sylvian sighed in an imitation of him. “Really?” He levied his french fry in a threatening manner. “Come on. It’s just me.”

Just him.

“I was thinking about what it would be like to get out of the game,” Felix said. “I can’t even picture it.”

“I can,” Sylvain said, surprising him. “College. Girls. Hot tubs. Keg stands. Total freedom.”

Felix snorted. “What are you majoring in—how to get an STD?”

Sylvain laughed and threw the french fry at him. “You wanna quit?” he asked. “We could go join the circus or get office jobs?”

Felix didn't know why he was surprised. It was a game and Sylvain was making a joke. He wasn’t genuinely offering to ditch their lives together. So Felix tried to pretend it was a joke too. “I can’t picture you with a tie.”

“I’d be great around a water cooler,” Sylvain said, pretending to be upset.

“Whatever,” Felix said. He went back to eating his much healthier lunch, plus the french fry Sylvain had thrown at him. Sylvain chuckled at that and then finished off his lunch before waving down the waitress. He pretended to ask for the bill, but actually used it as an excuse to sort of touch her wrist and grin an ineffable grin at her when she blustered about it before breaking out into nervous tittering giggles.

Felix stopped watching as Sylvian once again got a number. He looked out the window, because the only other option was to look at his phone and he didn’t want to see if anyone had texted. The weather was nice today. It was the only real upside. They were tracking down a lead on Agarthan Demons that Felix snatched up before Dimitri could even sniff near it. Having to track some of the nastiest Demons (and ones that probably killed Glenn) _and_ having to do it in the rain seemed like overkill.

“Hey,” Sylvain said, drawing him out of his thoughts. When Felix glanced over, Sylvain looked strangely serious. “Don’t leave. Or if you do, that’s okay, but don’t go without saying goodbye, okay?”

Felix stared at him, silently. “Okay,” he said.

“A lot easier to follow you, if I know you’re leaving,” Sylvain said, the same grin he used on the waitress back on his face.

Felix knew why she fell for it.

**XXX**

When Ashe, their ‘no I’m not a Hunter, but yes I will make you a fake ID because you saved me from a banshee’ contact said he ‘knew a guy’ to help them track a rogue werewolf pack, Sylvain hadn’t thought he meant the contact _was_ a werewolf.

Dedue could have been intimidating without being able to turn into a wolf, rarely did Sylvain meet someone who could tower over him. So hilariously, he was the _nicest_ person Sylvain had ever met.

“I think someone’s in love,” Sylvain muttered under his breath to Ingrid, as they watched Dimitri in the latter half of a forty minute conversation that should’ve taken ten.

Ingrid didn’t take the bait. She had her arms crossed over her chest and had been prickly the entire time they’d been here. Not to mention the huge argument they’d gotten into in the car when she’d found out what the contact was. Sylvain didn’t think werewolves had shit to do with the attack in Duscur, but he was in the minority. It seemed too obvious. Felix was prickly too, but that was his default state lately.

He was also carrying what looked like a prop replica sword from the Mortal Savant films.

“Did you bring a sword to a werewolf fight?” Sylvain balked.

Felix flicked his eyes from the natural state of watchfulness over whatever Dimitri was doing towards Sylvain and only said, “Its silver.”

Sylvain sighed heavily and stretched his arms up, threaded his fingers together, and rested his palms against the back of his head. “I need new friends.”

Dimitri finally stopped flirting and came back towards him. “Dedue has offered to show us the area where the weres that attacked Gideon generally gather.”

“Wonderful,” Ingrid said, in a way that sounded nothing but. Felix agreed with a disgruntled grunt.

Sylvain sighed at the both of them and looked up at Dedue. “Sorry if this a rude question, but do you ever get the urge to play fetch?

Dimitri looked scandalized that he’d asked that, but Dedue laughed, deep and unassuming. 

**XXX**

Felix found Sylvain outside the motel, sitting on the curb and staring out at either the rundown casino lights across the street, the desert backlot, or nothing at all. Felix assumed the latter, considering they’d had to kill his brother a few hours ago.

Years ago he might have known what to say, but now nothing felt right. Whenever someone asked if he was okay after Glenn died, he wanted to stab them—so he knew that wasn’t the right thing to say. It wasn’t like he had any specific platitudes to offer to comfort anyone. When had he felt okay, after Glenn? He was still waiting.

Instead he dropped the candy bar in Sylvain’s lap.

Sylvain seemed to register the gesture and glanced up at him. He looked like he was about to stretch his mouth into the fake smile he’d been giving them all since they’d booked into the motel to wash the demon blood off their clothes.

The discussion of what exactly Miklan and his new friends were doing with that much demon blood they’d have to have later.

“It’s from the vending machine,” Felix said, stiffly.

Sylvain stopped before more than a faint twitch of his lips appeared and then he glanced down. He held up the candy bar and balked at Felix. “A Payday?”

“It’s a candy bar,” Felix said.

“How the fuck do you go to a full vending machine and pick the _worst_ candy bar ever made?” Sylvain held the candy bar up and examined it like it was a demonic rune he was deciphering. “Even a 3 Musketeer’s Bar I could understand, but a Payday? It doesn’t even have chocolate on it.”

Before Felix could either snap at him for being ungrateful or offer to get another one, Sylvain laughed. Felix had gotten used to the manic laughs of someone unhinged by grief, but this wasn’t that. A relief, since Miklan definitely wasn’t worth losing Sylvain over. (Felix had lost enough.)

Sylvain patted the curb next to him once he’d stopped laughing and wheezed until Felix awkwardly sat next to him. “I can get a different one,” Felix offered.

Sylvain shook his head and bumped Felix’s arm with his own. “Nah. I haven’t broken my teeth in ages. I’m overdue.”

“Sylvain…”

Sylvain focused on unwrapping the candy bar. “You know, Felix, I’m going to give you a pass on not knowing what to say on this one. Hallmark hasn’t come up with a ‘sorry your piece of shit brother made a deal with demons, mutated into some weird beast and you had to send him to hell’ card yet.” He snorted. “First time telling him to go hell was literal.” Then he took a bite and made a face as he chewed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Felix offered, wincing at the hesitation he could hear in his own voice.

Sylvain opened his mouth to respond and then made another face and kept chewing. He held up a finger and chewed faster and then after chewing more than was necessary he shot Felix a look and smacked his lips and swallowed. “Next time we go after one of those green demons with the giant shark mouths we should just give them paydays. It’s like cement.”

Felix sighed and rested his hands on the edge of the curb, staring out at whatever Sylvain had been so focused on when he first found him here. “Do you want to be alone?”

“No,” Sylvain said, finally sounding a little serious. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I hate being alone.”

“I noticed,” Felix said, without turning around. He ignored the instant urge to jerk away when he felt Sylvain leaning on him and then ignored the follow-up urge to panic as his heart raced.

“Thanks for the shitty candy, Felix,” Sylvain said.

“No problem,” Felix grunted.

Sylvain’s laugh was softer this time, but just as genuine.

**XXX**

“I will pay you five hundred dollars if you go hold a mirror up to Hubert’s face,” Sylvain said.

“You don’t have five hundred dollars,” Felix countered.

The skinny goth guy that Edelgard had shown up with _had_ to be a vampire. There was no way that stretched out Edward Cullen wasn’t one. No way.

“Where’s Ingrid?” Sylvain asked. “I bet she ate something with garlic today. Should try to get her to make out with him.”

“She’s talking to Byleth,” Felix said. Sylvain wasn’t sure what kind of guy Jeralt had been, but a Hunter naming their kid after an actual demon was either really funny or kinda worrisome. Sadly it was too late to ask him about it. Hunters were dropping more each day, which was an observation Sylvain tried very hard not to think about.

“What if I put holy water in his drink?” Sylvain asked. He got a requisite scoffed laugh out of Felix which was more than enough. It was at least more satisfying than watching the way Edelgard and Dimitri skirted around each other. They’d been weird but always close as kids and she kept acting like she didn’t even know him. Plus her new Hunting crew was… freaky. And absolutely included a vampire.

It was also more interesting than listening to Rhea prattle on about what the relics they’d found meant about the apocalyptic prophecy (although she’d said it as if there was only one singular Apocalyptic Prophecy, and not like a million of them). Sylvain lasted through detailing Nemesis’s return that required a new host as well as a host to fight for the scion of Seiros (and the fate of the world). He started to lose focus around when she was detailing the only way to operate the gate to hell. Blood for Blood. Sylvain completely lost himself in a tangent trying to remember which horror movie had that tagline and what the plot was.

If he had known exactly what was going to happen in the next twenty minutes, Sylvain would’ve done more than ask Mercedes if she had a cross on her and if she was willing to get close to Hubert.

All hell didn’t break loose literally—that was Apocalyptic Prophecy shit. Figuratively, however, _hell broke fucking loose_.

One second it was one of the largest gathering of Hunters in years and another second later it was Edelgard standing on the bar and yelling about how they were all being manipulated by the Angels, Celestials, the Children of the Goddess who were living in our world—how humans were a pawn between them and the Demonic Creatures that escaped hell.

She punctuated her point by heaving a huge axe at Rhea’s head.

If Rhea had been human her head would have rolled across the floor and that would’ve been it. Unfortunately for all of them, Rhea wasn’t human. And that had understandably pissed her off.

Rhea transformed in a pure white celestial sting of light and then looked a fucking hell of a lot like Saint Seiros.

The upending chaos swept over Sylvain as he could only focus on scrambling away from the hot zone, fighting back against too many Hunters who should’ve been friend and not foe, and then trying to save his actual friends—not to mention figuring out what the fuck was going on.

Then the sanctuary of the Hunters, Garreg Mach, came down around them.

Later, sitting on the trunk of Ruin, Felix bandaged Ingrid’s arm and Dimitri stared out into nothing, talking to himself—while they all wondered if any of their friends had made it out before Garreg Mach was literally swallowed by the ground.

All Sylvain could offer was, “Yeah, but a yellow-eyed demon is _pretty_ close to being a vampire, so I was still kind of right.”

**XXX**

“We need to regroup,” Felix’s father said. It was impossible to listen to. If Felix had to hear him talking about the noble sacrifices of their fellow Hunters he was going to set the house on fire.

He’d been on edge since the fight and it didn’t feel like the focus he got during a Hunt. It was reckless chaos and there was no reason for _any_ of it.

Felix realized Dimitri was missing, which at least gave him an excuse to stop listening to his father and leave. Dimitri had been… eerily calm since Edelgard had attacked them with her group of demons—demons that fit the description of the ones that had killed Glenn and Dimitri’s parents. Felix almost wished the erratic beast Dimitri had been on Hunts would come back. Felix was learning how to deal with that one.

Maybe… Dimitri wasn’t too far gone this time and the calm was a good thing. Maybe he was hurt in a normal way. A way that didn’t drown into the past so deeply he thought a wraith was _actually_ Glenn and his dead parents—almost knocking Felix’s teeth out to prevent him from properly exorcising it.

It was a thin hope and Felix didn’t hold much to it. Dimitri was still the same fractured half person that had come back from Duscur. Maybe now everyone would know it too.

Felix didn’t expect it to be _so_ much worse.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Felix’s hand was still on the doorknob. Frozen at the view in front of him.

Dimitri had a trail of demon blood coating his lip like a sanguine mustache. His eyes were dark and inhuman. He licked his lip and turned to Felix—a look so intent and focused, one Felix had seen a million times before on Hunts, but never like this—never directed at him.

“We have to stop them, Felix. She’s been with them this _entire_ time. You heard the prophecy. They’re trying to bring End Times. If we don’t stop her, my parents and Glenn will never know peace. We—”

Felix punched him. Or he tried to punch him but whatever sick perversion the demonic blood had added to Dimitri’s system also made him fucking fast—Dimitri dodged out of the way, grabbed Felix’s hand and twisted his arm around his back.

“Don’t you _want_ them to have peace, Felix?” Dimitri hissed in his ear.

He’d always been strong, but he’d never been inhuman. Felix couldn’t budge even slightly out of his grip and panic rose in his throat. “Let me go, you fucking boar!”

Dimitri didn’t listen. “They’re stuck in the in-between, their business is unfinished. Glenn can’t rest until we right the wrong and take her head.”

“Let me _go_!” Felix snapped, fear shaking the edges of his words.

This time Dimitri did.

Felix left him there. He went to his room, stuffed a bag, and then kept going. Felix didn’t stop for Ingrid asking a question at the stairs. He didn’t stop as his father called his name. He didn’t stop when he passed the Hunters by the door. He didn’t stop as he opened and slammed the front door behind him.

He stopped a meter out when the door opened again and he heard Sylvain’s voice. “Felix?”

Felix didn’t turn around. He couldn’t turn around. All he could do was pause for a moment before he put as much fucking distance between him and this house as possible. “I’m leaving.”

That was as close to goodbye as he was going to be able to give. Felix breathed in, waiting for Sylvain’s response, but instead heard footsteps as Sylvian came up next to him. He jangled his keys. “Need a ride?”

Felix swallowed around the thick ball of pain that had choked him since he’d seen whatever _that_ was that _wasn’t_ Dimitri and nodded once.

“Cool,” Sylvain said, walking towards his car.

Felix stared at the back of him and his resolve about leaving didn’t falter, but… “I… I’m not coming back.”

Sylvain only shrugged before opening the passenger’s door and walking around to the front, like he had all the time in the world.

Felix walked to the car, got in the passenger’s seat and closed the door. They were completely silent, save the ambient thrum of the local classic rock radio station not loud enough to distinguish the song. It was at least an hour before Sylvain said anything.

“Felix,” he said. Felix expected him to start talking him into turning around and steeled himself for it. But all Sylvain said was, “At some point I am going to need a direction to drive in, otherwise we’re headed into Lake Teutates.”

“South,” Felix said. There were jobs there that didn’t involve Hunting. And if that wasn’t what he wanted, there were Hunts there that didn’t involve anything they were leaving behind.

Sylvain sighed and turned up the radio. “I should’ve asked earlier.” He changed lanes and did a U-turn in the middle of the road towards the direction of the nearest highway.

**XXX**

Trying not to Hunt lasted three months. Felix cut his hair and got a job at Shamir’s Bait and Tackle. He even managed not to murder the manager who couldn’t stop making puns that even Sylvain found painful. Meanwhile, Sylvain pretended he knew how to bartend. He’d actually gotten pretty good at the part that didn’t involve making drinks—it relied on a lot of his best skills, listening, pretending he cared, and charming people into giving up things (in this case tips—and sometimes if the patron was cute enough, the usual).

Sylvain figured that if it all blew up, it would be because Sheriff Catherine caught Felix strangling Alois, but of course that wasn’t how it worked.

Sylvain had the idea of Hunting being in his blood since he was old enough to remember. It wasn’t until the small, nothing town they were staying in was being overrun by Bonewalkers did he think maybe it was true.

When they were done, Felix had that distant look in his eyes—the one that scared the shit out of Sylvain and meant he might run off without even telling him.

“I mean,” Sylvain said, a little desperate and mostly hiding it, “it might be good to get some use out of the shitton of weapons in my trunk?”

And that was that. And that was probably the best four years of Sylvain’s life… for whatever that was worth, which turned out not much.

**X**

Sylvain resisted telling Felix he looked like a wet cat when he was drenched, mostly because he looked like an angry drenched cat, holding a very sharp trident still covered in green blood. “Did you seriously try to flirt a _mermaid_ out of the idea of drowning you?”

 _Sylvain_ wasn’t wet. “If you’d given me five more minutes it might have worked!”

**X**

“If we only had a Payday!” Sylvain yelled, cheerfully, doing a terrible job _not_ drawing the large mouthed toothy demon’s attention.

It gave Felix a clean shot, or as clean as he could trying to shoot an arrow made of the bones of the recently consecrated at the neck of a huge demon about to bite off Sylvain’s shoulder.

**X**

“Please,” Sylvain begged, to the immovable face of the heartless person he called his best friend. “We can’t kill her. It’s unfair!”

Felix gave him a dry look and stabbed the most perfect torso in the history of the universe. The most beautiful woman in existence exploded into dust with a high pitched scream and Sylvain could have wept.

“It wasn’t _actually_ Marilyn Monroe,” Felix said, because he was heartless.

**X**

“I’m _telling you_ ,” Sylvain said, very seriously for someone on all fours, panting. “That witch put a spell on me and I can talk to dogs and that one is telling me there’s more to this murder than what’s on the page.”

Felix sighed at him. “When is your dick not going to get us into trouble?” Sylvain cocked his head and his hangdog expression looked a little more authentic. “I’m getting a rolled up newspaper.”

**X**

“And,” Sylvain said, “that’s how we managed to make our way out of the sewers.”

Annette’s nose was crinkled and she still looked suspicious. “Yeah, but _what_ does that have to do with why there are ten leprechauns in my backyard?”

“Sylvain ignored the ‘no irony’ warning about the curse,” Felix said.

“I thought I’d get Lucky Charms!”

**X**

“You call your dad?” Sylvain asked Felix, settling down next to him on the motel bed. Too close as per usual. He smelled like cheap bourbon and the slight spice of his hair products.

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s your birthday,” Sylvain said, like that meant anything.

“He’s missed enough of them by now to not care about one more,” Felix said. The last time he’d been nostalgic enough to check in, his father had gone in on him about honor and their family duty and that he’d hurt everyone by leaving, including demon-blood sucking Dimitri. He wasn’t doing that again.

Sylvain sighed, but didn’t press, so Felix didn’t get up. A tactical mistake, as Sylvain slung an arm around him and grinned lewdly. “Wanna go get drunk legally then? Maybe find you the girl of your dreams?”

For however observant Sylvain was, this was one blindspot Felix both hated and didn’t mind. “I don’t have your insatiable appetite for women.” He saw the slightest hurt on Sylvain’s face before the arm lifted off Felix’s shoulders and then added. “I’m gay.”

Sylvain stared at him for a long moment. “We’re going to have to go to a different bar then.”

**X**

The rock salt blasted out of Sylvain’s shot gun scattering around the room and sending the screaming phantom in three different directions. Now they were angry and screaming. Sylvain reloaded and shot again so that it narrowed down to one direction. Specifically the direction Felix had set up the Crest symbol to catch it.

It was a standard Hunt, which for once went seamlessly, so Sylvain couldn’t figure out why Felix was completely spaced out on the drive back to the motel.

“Do you—” Felix started and then stopped, shook his head and opened his window so the cold night air rushed in.

It was then that Sylvain remembered the date. It had been seven years since that demon attack had changed the trajectory of all their lives, but maybe none more than Felix.

“Glenn wouldn’t hang on,” Sylvain said. “You salted the bodies, remember?”

Felix’s hair was finally growing out again. It flew around in the wind in all directions. His voice was almost swallowed by the noise. “What if I missed?”

“When have you ever fucking missed?” Sylvain asked rhetorically, then then added, “And besides, even given the chance, no way would Glenn hang on.”

Felix nodded once, softly and leaned his head against the side of the door, staring out at the open road.

**XX**

Felix regretted agreeing to pose as partners the second he realized what Sylvain meant by _partners._ It wasn’t enough that he had to be tormented by the unending nights out with Sylvain’s new fling. Or his tendency to come out of the shower with a towel so low on his hips Felix could bet how far the freckles went. No. He had to have Sylvain’s hand in his hair, or holding his own hand. He had to have his lips on his forehead, all in the name of sharing information and keeping up the lie so that they could figure out what the fuck was going on in this town that kept disappearing couples every six months.

Felix was trying to go over their notes on the couch at the place they’d rented, but he kept thinking about the way Sylvain had brushed his knuckles against the back of his neck while they were talking to the Mayor’s wife.

“Any luck?” Sylvain asked, coming out of the kitchen.

Felix stood before he realized that was an awkward thing to do and tried to ignore Sylvain’s eyebrow raise. “Gorgon maybe. Or a curse, but people don’t usually disappear on schedules.”

“Probably would’ve seen some kind of snake skin if it was Gorgon,” Sylvain said. “Guess we’re going to have to accept that brunch invitation with the Mayor and her wife after all.”

“Great,” Felix said, even though it was anything but. He realized Sylvain was looking at him, but something about the look was putting him on edge. “What?” he asked, hesitantly.

Sylvain took a step towards him and reached out, one hand on either side of Felix’s face. He was inches from him. His hands tilted Felix’s face up. There was no one else around, but Sylvain still had the look of fond affection on his face that he’d had when he’d been playing at the role of boyfriend earlier.

Felix was sure that Sylvain was going close the inches and kiss him. He felt himself open up to it like a sail unfurling. Then as suddenly as it had happened, it crashed and Sylvain slapped him lightly on the cheek and smiled. “Do the dishes, sweetheart. It’s been two fucking days and it’s still your turn.”

Like nothing had fucking happened, Sylvain dropped his hands and sank crosslegged onto the couch, picking up Felix’s notes to look over.

Felix didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night.

Felix was debating never talking to him again, when staring up at the dark ceiling—somewhere south of midnight—he heard Sylvain shift next to him. Because of course there was only one bed.

“Are you mad at me?” Sylvain asked, somehow knowing Felix was still awake.

“No,” Felix said. He was mad at himself.

“I feel like you’re mad at me. Is it because I put my hand in your pocket when we were walking around town?”

Felix was glad the room was too dark to see his face, because judging by the way it immediately flushed with heat, he didn’t think he had a good poker face. “No. I said I wasn’t mad. Drop it.”

Sylvain went quiet. Long enough that Felix thought he might have actually dropped it. Long enough for Felix think about attempting sleep himself.

Then, “I don’t want to screw this up.”

“Then don’t,” Felix said automatically, not sure what they were really talking about.

Sylvain let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “It’s my specialty though.”

Felix sighed and rubbed his knuckles against the bridge of his nose. “You aren’t screwing anything up.”

“I would have if I’d kissed you,” Sylvain said, baldly to the darkness of the bedroom and the time of night.

It was illogical that Sylvain could hear how loud Felix’s heart was pounding in his own ears, but it felt like it all the same.

Felix swallowed. “Why do you think that?”

“I’m kerosene, Felix. You just have to light a match. I don’t want the best thing I have to go up in flames.”

“It won’t,” Felix said. He meant it. No matter what. He wouldn’t lose Sylvain too. “We promised in spit.”

Sylvain’s chuckle was a little lighter, but less forced than before. “We really should’ve used blood, shouldn’t we?”

“I’ve got a knife under my pillow if you want to do it now?” Felix offered.

“Only one?” Sylvain asked, like he was mocking him.

“Only under the pillow,” Felix replied. “I’m not the one that almost got taken down by a sleep demon in Hevring.”

He heard Sylvain take a deep breath. “What if we did it with spit again?” Sylvain said in a rush. “And threw an addendum that no matter what happened, you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t leave. If I screw up.”

The weight of the words hung in the air and now Felix wished there was light so he could see what Sylvain’s face looked like when he turned his head towards him, at least more than a vague outline.

“I _do_ have a knife under my pillow if you’re fucking with me,” Felix said, but his words weren’t as hard and threatening as he wanted them to be. They sounded light and breathless, vulnerable.

“I’m not."

“Okay,” Felix said, the weight of it crushing him into the mattress. “All right.”

One hand brushed against Felix’s face and this time when Sylvain drew him closer, it was for a kiss.

**XX**

“Felix!” Sylvain begged. “Please. _Please_. I will do whatever you want,” he said. “Anything.”

“You already do,” Felix countered, which ouch and also true.

“Come on, how often do we get the opportunity to live our dreams?”

Felix stared up at the ceiling. “It’s a demon that steals your soul when you get your dreams.”

“Yes, but by luring it out we will get to also recreate the Titanic scene where Kate Winslet is topless before we kill it.”

Sylvain was started to recognize a look Felix gave him and had given him for a while, which was his utter confusion as to why he was so enamored by him. Sylvain had no idea why he liked that face so much.

Sylvain threw in some more guilt. “There are people suffering, disappearing, probably dying! Definitely losing their souls.”

Felix sighed and did what he always did and gave in. “Fine.”

“I love you,” Sylvain said.

Felix stared at him long enough that Sylvain realized that was the first time he’d said it out loud. “Seriously? _Now_? For Kate Winslet’s tits?”

Sylvain couldn’t hold back the grin. “They’re really good tits,” he said and cupped his hands around Felix’s face. “I love you,” he said again.

Felix stared at him with the look again, but then mumbled, almost incoherently, ‘I love you too’ and kissed him, before shoving him backwards. “Dick.” 

**X**

Felix found Sylvain on the curb outside of the motel again. It seemed to be the place he drifted towards when shit when wrong. Felix wondered if it had anything to do with how many times Miklan had left him on random street corners in bad (monstrously so) neighborhoods.

Felix settled down next to him and rested his hand against Sylvain’s neck, brushing his fingertips against the soft hair there. Sylvain hung his head forward, made a strangled noise and then drew his knees up to lean his forehead against them.

“It wasn’t real,” Felix said, not that it helped.

“Felt real.”

“That’s a Revenant’s job,” Felix said. He pressed his lips to Sylvain’s ear. “It wasn’t real.”

“Is this real?” Sylvain asked, mumbled into his knees.

Felix bit down on the immediate impulse to get defensive that rose in him and pressed closer. “You’re the only thing that’s real sometimes.”

Sylvian didn’t respond to that. Felix held him as best as he could until Sylvain slowly opened up and buried his face in Felix’s neck. Hot wet tears pressed into Felix’s skin and Felix held onto him tighter.

“I’m cursed,” Sylvain said, later, when he thought Felix was asleep. “My blood is cursed and one of these days I’m going to bring you down too.”

Felix let him think he was asleep.

**X**

Felix was pretty sure this was the most uncomfortable position ever to do this in, but the ride of adrenaline from taking down the Faceless—a gym bro muscled demon with a hockey mask and chainsaw arms—was making them both horny.

It was the only reason he’d agreed to be shoved into the back of the Lance, with Sylvain’s mouth on his neck, and his clumsy hands still struggling to get one or both of their pants off. Felix’s spine was going to hate him tomorrow. He pulled Sylvain’s mouth onto his own and kissed him, muffling the moans as Sylvain hoisted his hips up and ground their bodies together in a blissful heat.

Then Sylvain tugged his teeth against Felix’s bottom lip and breathed, “Mmm, baby.”

Felix’s leg hit the back of the front seat as he shoved Sylvain backwards.

Sylvain grunted in annoyance and shifted, doing very little to readjust his position in half straddling Felix and half straddling the floor. “What?”

“You can’t call me that—you call your _car_ that!”

“You’re both very important to me!” Sylvain protested and laughed as Felix hit him in the shoulder.

**X**

“I think we gotta go old school with the Giant Crawlers,” Sylvain called out, thumbing through the Gautier Handbook of How to Kill Things.

“Coffee?” Felix asked from behind him. His voice was still husky with sleep, which meant he was already making it.

“Please,” Sylvain said. Not that he needed any. He flipped through a few more pages. They had to be what were causing the earthquakes in Goneril. This close to Almyra there was so much open desert that it was the only thing that made sense. Regular magic was going to either attract them or make them stronger, given their origin—so maybe good old salt bullets? Regular bullets?

A cheap paper cup of motel coffee was hovering by Sylvain’s left, he took it with a mumbled thanks. He sipped it, happy for the existence of creamer and sugar, even if the love of his life drank it black like an insane person.

“Hey, Fe?” Sylvain asked.

“Mm?”

“What kind of bullets do you—” Sylvain turned to look over his shoulder and the question lost itself into the air that escaped his lungs.

Felix stared at him, coffee in his hands, legs bare, and wearing Sylvain’s flannel which barely covered him up to mid-thigh. His eyes were still sleepy and his hair was falling down in a mix of choppy layers. “Sylvain?”

Giant toothy worms could wait a few hours. Sylvain tossed his inheritance of old Hunter knowledge onto the couch, put the coffee down, and walked towards Felix who was giving him a confused look.

Sylvain took his coffee, ignoring his protest as he put it aside, and ran his hands from Felix’s bare legs and then up to confirm that yes, he was completely naked underneath.

“You’re insatiable,” Felix muttered, that little flush of red covering his nose as Sylvain squeezed his ass and then and backed him up towards the bed.

“You’re never wearing your own clothes again,” Sylvain said, growled into Felix’s neck, appreciative of the way Felix’s breath hitched when they fell onto the bed. Sylvain kicked his boxers off and hiked the flannel Felix wear wearing up his hips—he made sure to have a very convincing argument for Felix to keep it on.

**X**

“Okay press the clutch with your left foot,” Sylvain said.

Felix almost hit the brake, but then moved his foot to the left. He should’ve learned to do this a while back, but it wasn’t until their last encounter with that cyclops that he’d realized it was actually possible for Sylvain to be incapacitated and that driving a stick wasn’t as easy as it looked.

Felix turned the car on, because that was something he actually knew how to do.

“All right so press the brake and clutch and shift the transmission into first,” Sylvain said, like that wasn’t complete nonsense.

Felix turned to look at him. “What?”

Sylvain sighed and took Felix’s hand and put it on the gearstick. He then leaned over and manhandled Felix’s thighs into place. “Hit those pedals—not the accelerator!”

Sylvain breathed out and then muttered something under his breath and showed Felix the position to move the gearstick so it was in the top left position. Sylvain rested his hand on Felix’s right leg, like _that_ was helping him concentrate. “Take your foot off the brake.”

“Won’t the car move?”

“Not enough to matter,” Sylvain said. “So lift—” He emphasized this with a squeeze to Felix’s left leg. “—off the clutch slowly, so it’s not all the way down.” Then he moved and squeezed Felix’s right thigh again. “And press on the accelerator— _lightly_!”

Sylvain leaned over again, his breath hot on Felix’s ear—he had to be doing this on purpose. “Roll your foot, easy—yeah like that.”

Sylvain kept up the infuriatingly distracting steps of touching Felix on the leg he wanted him to move, and drawing his fingertips lightly up the inside of Felix’s wrist when he wanted to show him to how to shift into the next gear. He also kept lowering his voice and saying shit like, “and you can _feel_ when my lady is ready to go to the next gear.”

By the time they’d gotten to fourth gear, driven around, and then parked again. Felix was done. He undid his seatbelt and then crawled over the gearstick to get onto Sylvain’s lap.

Sylvain’s hands automatically came to Felix’s hips, but his eyebrows were raised in surprise. “I didn’t know Ruin would rev your engines too.”

“Shut up, shut _up_ ,” Felix said, and then made him.

**X**

Felix pulled the trigger and Sylvain watched his own brains splatter against the wall. He dislodged his heart from his throat and then stared at Felix. “How—what if that _was_ me!?”

Felix didn’t look at him, merely checked the rounds in his revolver and pointed it at the shapeshifter that was slowly forming back into something vaguely Sylvain-looking.

Felix shot it again. “It wasn’t irritating enough.”

“Har har,” Sylvain said, glancing back at the thing that was not him and getting overwhelmed with the kind of existential dread he usually avoided. “Seriously, how’d you know?

Felix put his gun in his holster and then cocked eyebrow at Sylvain.

“Yeah… well,” Sylvain said. “I’d know it wasn’t you if it said something nice to me.”

Felix didn’t even have a reaction to that. He only turned around to see if any more of those things were in the house. Sylvain absolutely did not trail off after him to avoid looking at the not-himself that his boyfriend had shot in the face.

**X**

“It’s too long to be a cutlass,” Felix said. “You’re advertising it incorrectly.”

The pink haired attendant dressed in a frilly approximation of someone’s wet dream of what a medieval outfit looked like stared blankly at him. “It’s an extra-long cutlass,” she said.

“Cutlasses were short, because there were more close-quarter fights when ships were being raided.”

She let out a long, annoyed noise, and turned around. “ _Leonie!_ I’m taking a break. This nerd is all yours.”

“Your shift just started!” said another voice from behind the booth.

“I wanted to sell jewelry! I don’t give a shit about how sharp an axe is supposed to be in fakelandia of Imperial Year 1069.”

“I left you alone for five minutes,” Sylvain said, behind him.

“They’re advertising incorrectly,” Felix said frowning. It ruined the only enjoyment he had of this Live Action Role-Play nightmare.

“Yes, biggest concern for us monster hunters,” Sylvain drawled, throwing an arm around Felix’s shoulder and purposefully dragging him away from the booth. “Not the dead people with weird Crest tattoos showing up.”

“If you’re going to do something, you should do it right,” Felix grumbled.

“Doubt it was sharp enough to kill a Maelduin with anyway,” Sylvain said, jostling him a little. He was trying to cheer him up, which was as annoying as it was endearing.

“Is that what you think it is?” Felix asked.

“Best guess,” Sylvain said. “That Claude guy, who by the way _does not_ buy that we’re federal agents—gave a couple of solid indicators. The hoofmarks by all the bodies are a solid.”

“There shouldn’t be any Maelduin in this area,” Felix said. He frowned as a purple haired fully armored knight holding a _wo dao_ instead of literally any other period accurate sword, walked by trying to hold out a rose to one of the busty inaccurately dressed maidens.

“Yeah,” Sylvain said, tugging Felix closer for some reason. “Seems like a lot of things are going into territory they aren’t supposed to, doesn’t it?”

“You think there’s a reason for that?”

Sylvain’s mouth twisted and he moved his arm so that it was wrapped around Felix’s waist and his hand was resting on his hip. “Honestly? Yeah. I just don’t know what.”

They were interrupted twice by overly enthusiastic LARPers who wanted to invite Sylvain into the jousting tournament, before Felix got rid of them and ignored how smug Sylvain was afterwards.

It turned out to be a few Maelduin—which Felix was able to defeat with an _accurate_ period specific sword and not one of those pieces of crap they were selling in the booths.

“They’re coming!” one of the Maelduin said, before it died. “They’ll come for all of you! Nemesis _will_ return!”

The hairs on the back of Felix’s neck stood up—he was thinking about the day he hated thinking about. The day he’d been able to shove down into nothing and wrap himself in only Sylvain and Hunting and nothing else.

“Think we should maybe check in with… one of the others?” Sylvain asked, hesitantly. “See if they’re running into any weird stuff too?”

“No,” Felix said. He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about them (or him) or any of them. It was easier that way. And it wasn’t like there was anything they could do.

Sylvain’s face in Felix’s periphery was unreadable. When Felix looked directly at him, Sylvain’s expression eased into a smile. “We have enough time. I could still joust—you can give me a favor to wear.”

“Its the same time as the sword fighting competition,” Felix said, ignoring the way Sylvain’s obvious deflection made the hair on the back of his neck stand up too.

“Fe,” Sylvain said, his smile growing fond. “You know you can’t actually stab one of the LARPers.”

“I’d only disarm,” Felix said.

“You can’t cut their arms off either,” Sylvain said, chastising.

Felix fought the smile, but scoffed a laugh anyway and felt warm when Sylvain beamed a grin in response—always too fucking happy to make him laugh.

It was better this way. Just him and Sylvain.

**XXX**

Felix looked pissed. Sylvain still couldn’t draw up the energy to pretend he was sorry about it.

“How long?” Felix asked, but of course, he _was_ pissed, so didn’t let Sylvain get out more than a syllable of explanation before he snapped, “How long were you reporting back on me like you’re my fucking nanny?”

“Hey,” Sylvain said. “It wasn’t like that, I…” Sylvain knew that he’d screwed up keeping it secret this long, but Felix was always so on edge whenever Sylvain mentioned any of them that it had seemed easier not to say he’d kept in touch. He had plenty of arguments in his defense stored up, but instead he said, “I _have_ a life outside of Hunting, Felix.”

“A life outside of me,” Felix said. There was a tenor beneath the anger that killed Sylvain, because it was all hurt. He always knew was going to screw this up.

“Felix—”

“How long?” Felix repeated. His eyes were sharp, glassy, and unrelenting.

Sylvain knew the second he told him the truth he’d lose him, but he couldn’t find in himself to lie when Felix was looking at him like that.

“Since we first left.”

The sharp breath and look of betrayal sealed it. Felix turned around and stormed off. Sylvain felt his world shift around him. He felt the ground give out from under him like it was four years ago and they were still fighting in Garreg Mach.

Pushing past the immediate terror and panic vertigo, Sylvain went after him. Felix kept walking no matter how many times Sylvain called him name. He looked like he had back at the Fraldarius house right before they’d left. When he’d almost left without him. The line of his shoulder and back, that Sylvain was now intimately familiar with, were tensed like a fishing line about to snap.

Sylvain grabbed Felix’s arm and dug his fingers in, desperate to keep him from walking further. Felix stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Felix,” Sylvain said, his throat tightening. “You promised you wouldn’t leave.”

Felix jerked forward until his arm was loose. His tensed shoulders were still taut, ready to break. His voice came out low, and even. “I underestimated how badly you screw things up.”

Sylvain’s throat was dry. He couldn’t dig up the words that would fix this. He knew nothing would fix this. He should’ve lied. Or thrown the phone away ages ago. Two hours ago Felix was waking up next to him, soft and smiling—couldn’t it be two hours ago again? Couldn’t they have a do-over?

“Felix…” Sylvain said, but nothing else came out. His feet felt like they were sinking into the ground as he watched Felix pick up speed and walk off.

Miklan’s words blasted through his brain again. _Of course you named your car that. You ruin everything you touch_.

It was at least an hour before Sylvain got enough energy to check out of the motel and get in his car. Felix’s badly folded map that he insisted on using instead of GPS was still resting on the seat. Sylvain wasn’t sure how much time had passed, his head against the steering wheel, his heart in his shoes, when his phone dinged.

It wasn’t Felix. It was the same number that had set this entire fucking thing off. Instead of directing any of his anger outwards and blaming the messenger—Sylvain responded.

Ingrid was on a Hunt one town over. This morning Sylvain had spent too much time thinking about what kind of coffee and breakfast to sweeten Felix up with and convince him to go see her, that he could use. It was dinner by the time he actually met up with her. Alone.

The diner was busy. It was the only place in town. Ingrid looked at him sadly and held his hand. “If you want to come home, you can do that, Sylvain. Felix… maybe he’ll come around finally.”

“He won’t,” Sylvain said. “He’s…” Stubborn. Angry. Perfect. “I fucked up.”

Ingrid frowned and squeezed his hand. “You didn’t. It’s been four years, he should pick up his phone. It isn’t like Dimitri and I haven’t tried to reach him.”

Sylvain had no idea. Felix had never mentioned it. Sylvain couldn’t even remember him ever checking his phone, even if it vibrated in his pocket. Sylvain had called him three times and texted him too many times to count—now he was the same ignored notification in Felix’s pocket. If he’d even kept his phone.

“Fuck,” Sylvain said and lowered his head.

Ingrid waited until their food arrived before she tried to drag him out of his self-pity. Watching her eat was oddly soothing. Familiar. “I looked into the Maelduin in Derdriu,” Ingrid said, after a massive bite of mashed potatoes. “The Crest tattoos weren’t one of the Ten.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Sylvain pushed his own food around on his plate. “Didn’t pay that much attention at Sunday School, but those were pretty much nailed into my head at home.”

“It was a Crest though,” Ingrid said. She wasn’t eating which meant it was serious. “The Crest of Flames.”

Fuck. “Like _Nemesis_?”

Ingrid nodded. Then she looked around the booth and leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “Also Edelgard.”

“What?” Sylvain asked. That made no sense. Sure, there was some latent magic from the first Ten Hunters in their blood, but Edelgard had a Seiros Crest from her mother’s side. It was a whole thing when they were kids and deciding who would play Seiros, who would play Loog, and who would be Kryphon.

“Yeah, I know,” Ingrid said. “We went up against them a couple of year ago. It was… rough. We lost some good Hunters. Dimitri… he hasn’t been the same. The things she can do aren’t normal. It’s like she’s found a way to tap into all the magic of _both_ of her Crests. He…” Ingrid cleared her throat. “We think that maybe Rhea’s prophecy was right. Maybe Edelgard is the host Nemesis needed.”

Sylvain leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the pillowed back of the booth. “Fuck.”

“So. Needless to say, we could use you,” Ingrid said. “If you’re willing to come home.”

Sylvain turned his head to the window. Felix had nothing on him, but Sylvain’s flannel, his wallet, and his gun. How far had he gotten? Where would he go? Sylvain pulled out his phone and tried calling him again—it didn’t even ring twice before it went to voicemail.

Sylvain sighed and put his phone on the table. “Where else do I have to go?”

**XXX**

Felix closed his eyes, trying to avoid the dust as the Entombed fell to actual pieces. He didn’t want to add mummy dust in his eyes to his shitty day. It had been a few months, but Felix still waited for the quip from his right side about their victory.

It wasn’t theirs anymore. It had never been.

Felix kicked the dust on the floor and walked out of the mausoleum. It was harder to keep fully supplied now that he didn’t have a car, but he’d managed with the motorcycle he’d gotten for a steal—and had managed to learn to ride without killing himself, thanks to off-road motorbike muscle memory from when he Glenn and Dimitri had been too fucking stupid to know better.

He pushed that thought aside with the rest of them and unloaded his shotgun before putting it away. The shotgun went away. The thought didn’t.

Felix couldn’t forget who else had been with them on those stupid expeditions. He’d forcibly refused to think about Dimitri for years—not thinking about Edelgard had been an unintentional side-effect. She’d been weird, intense, and annoying, but Felix couldn’t remember thinking she was a mastermind of evil. She also (like everyone) _loved_ Glenn. He was one of the few people she wouldn’t boss around or criticize.

He’d ridden to the nearest gas station, intending to get some energy drinks and beef jerky before finding a motel. Instead he saw a newspaper with a headline that piqued his interest. Before he’d ever been on a Hunt Felix had been made to comb over newspapers to see anything that stood out as strange.

The animal attacks referred to on page three sounded a little too much like wolves for an area that hadn’t had any major predators for years. Adrestia was only thirty miles east from here. Felix was considering his options, when the clerk barked at him to either buy the paper or get out. He flipped them off and decided to buy food at the next stop, throwing the paper to the side.

Then he went east.

It took him two weeks to find her. He couldn’t get his bike up the trail at a certain point, so had to deal with walking up the rest of the mountain to where they had way too many angles on him and far too much tree coverage. It was also fucking cold and he still hadn’t picked up a replacement jacket—so had to wear Sylvain’s oversized flannel that had stopped smelling of him months ago. Biker boots, jeans, his hair back, and his ex’s shirt. Felix was sure he looked _real_ intimidating as he made the trek.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t think the boar was right. And all he had to trust at this point was his gut.

The gun cocked near his head more for effect than anything else. Hubert’s voice sounded the same as it had four years ago. “A poor showing if this is your attempt to infiltrate.”

“Is it?” Felix asked. He didn’t have to cock his gun, just looked at it, so Hubert could also see that it was pointed at his stomach. Gut wounds were messy and painful, even for yellow-eyed demons.

“I’m willing to risk death for Edelgard,” Hubert said, pressing the gun against Felix’s temple.

“Good for you,” Felix said, “I’m not.”

“I thought you’d left that pack of wild dogs,” Hubert said, disappointed.

Felix couldn’t believe someone he’d never even talked to had expectations of him—and he’d somehow still not met them. It made him want to laugh. He turned his head, keeping his torso still enough that Hubert wouldn’t be trigger happy since his gun was now right against Felix’s forehead. “I’m not with anyone.”

Hubert looked skeptical. “You’re here to… join our cause?”

“Doubt it,” Felix said. “I do want to talk. If she’s interested.”

“She is,” Edelgard said, somewhere to his left. Hubert was glowering and Felix couldn’t help but remember Sylvain’s insistence he was a vampire. “Hubert,” she added.

Hubert’s eyes shifted, barely a twitch into the yellow that used to haunt Felix’s nightmares (and definitely Dimitri’s). He lowered his gun and bowed to Edelgard. “As you wish. Though I am prepared to tear his throat out at your word.”

“Thank you,” Edelgard said, without irony.

Felix didn’t roll his eyes. He held his gun down at his side and rested his finger against the barrel, just above the trigger.

“It’s good to see you again, Felix,” Edelgard said. “Although unexpected.”

Felix had never been one to bullshit. “That Stoneborn that came up in Aegir. Rumor has it a couple of yellow-eyed demons, Agarthans,” he added, pleased to see Hubert twitch—that meant he was right, “took it out.”

Edelgard wasn’t dressed as the demoness horned druid he’d heard rumors of—she was wearing almost the same thing Felix was wearing, except her long, now white hair was braided to the side. She smirked a little. “That seems unlikely. Since when do demons _help_ anyone?”

“What you said at Garreg Mach,” Felix said, ignoring her bait—because Edelgard did like to bullshit, “was that true?”

Edelgard sobered and rested her hands on her hips. She always had a lot of gravitas for someone so short. “Yes. Every word.”

“That means you’re looking for the sword,” Felix said. “The gateway key.”

“The Spine of Sothis,” Edelgard said. “Some call it the Sword of the Creator, but I prefer not to mince words.”

He’d liked that about her before things went to shit. So had Glenn. “Right.” He took a breath and avoided the urge to move his finger back to the trigger. He probably wouldn’t be able to get off a shot fast enough to kill both of them if he needed to. “So. _Are_ you working with the demons who killed Glenn?”

Hubert made an annoyed sound behind him, but Felix kept his eyes on Edelgard. She didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I need them to prevent the Apocalypse,” Edelgard said. “And then I’ll send them back to hell in pieces.”

It sounded like she was in over her head. It also sounded like maybe there was way out of this fucking mess. Felix had been out of the game so long he wasn’t sure he had the energy to throw himself back in—but he had nothing but trust in his own gut and it was telling him she wasn’t bullshitting him.

“I have a lead on the sword,” Felix said. It was a gamble—something Sylvain would’ve been better at playing. Felix had a terrible poker face.

“And you’d share it?” Edelgard asked.

“Yeah,” Felix said. “But not for free.”

She lifted one eyebrow and then looked behind him at Hubert. Felix heard the gun lowering from behind him where it had silently raised without him noticing. Not… great. Then Edelgard gestured him in one direction. “Then let’s discuss this like civilized Hunters over tea.”

“I’d prefer a beer,” Felix said.

“We have that too.”

**XXX**

Sylvain was more than a little surprised when he saw Dimitri again. He seemed… fine, minus the fact that he was missing an eye—which apparently Sylvain wasn’t supposed to mention. The group of Hunters they’d organized were _organized_. It was more like an army than actual Hunters.

An army with casualties.

“You didn’t tell me,” Sylvain said, staring at his shoes. “I—I could’ve told Felix.”

“It didn’t seem like the kind of thing to say over the phone,” Ingrid said softly. She touched Sylvain’s arm. “I was… I was hoping to tell Felix in person. It happened a couple of months before I saw you.”

“Fuck,” Sylvain said. There was nothing else to say. Except… “I need a minute.” He left their underground compound and walked off into the dark and dangerous woods. Somehow it felt easier to breathe there. He wasn't sure what that was about—wasn’t the peak of Hunter tech something he should’ve been excited about? The books alone in that place…

Sylvain didn’t even have to look at his phone to dial Felix at this point. It predictably went to voicemail before a second ring. He wondered if Felix cut it every single time or if he’d set it up that way. Usually when Sylvain rambled into his voicemail he almost hoped Felix couldn’t hear him. This time he really hoped he could.

“Felix…” Sylvain said and then shut his eyes. “Your dad’s dead. I wish… I wish I was with you when you found this out. Ingrid said they—there was an Agarthan attack in Gronder. He took a hit meant for Dimitri. They gave him a Hunter funeral—I’m sure that doesn’t count for much with you, but I thought you should know. Fuck, I hope you listen to this. I can’t even think about you finding out from someone else.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t go through this alone. Call me. I’ll be there—I’ll come whenever.”

The silence stretched out. Nothing but woods, crickets, and an empty phone line. “I… I’ll stop calling. If you tell me to, I’ll do that. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I miss you. And… Dimitri seems okay, he misses you. I—fuck… I lied—I’ll still call if you tell me to stop. I love you.”

He hung up and leaned his head against the nearest tree.

Hunts were done with the same kind of military precision that Sylvain should’ve expected seeing the crew that Dimitri had put together. All the Blaiddyd legacy. King of the Hunters, once again.

Even still Mauthe Doogs were no fucking joke. Demon dogs were bad enough, but those fuckers were aggressive. Sylvain had Hunting in his blood, but fuck if Dimitri and Ingrid weren’t better at it. He didn’t think he was bad, until he saw the way they reacted to everything quicker. They were stronger, faster, and better than him in every way.

Fear of getting left behind again (and still no response from Felix, no matter how many times he called or texted) made him step up and train harder. He went on those morning runs he used to hate with Felix, lifted weights with Dimitri’s werewolf friend Dedue, and read as many of those old ass books as he could get his hands on.

A year without Felix went by too fucking fast and even with Sylvain obsessively trying to catch up, he could never match Ingrid or any of Dimitri’s loyal Hunters. He felt so far behind.

“It’s okay,” Ingrid said, after another Hunt where she’d had to save his ass.

“No, it’s not,” Sylvain said, resting on his haunches. “I have to be better.” If what he’d pieced together from the tomes was right… they all had to. He needed to tell Dimitri when he was back from wherever he’d gone off to this time.

“Sylvain…” Ingrid said, hesitantly. “I… know a way to do that. If you’re really interested.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain said, a little too eager to grasp at anything he could cling to. “Yes.”

Ingrid smiled at him. An hour later he was descending to a level of the compound he didn’t know existed. The wide walls shrunk down into a metal claustrophobic stairway that wound down further and further until it stretched into what if Sylvain didn’t know better he’d say was a dungeon.

Then as they passed the first door, complete with barred windows, a demon slammed itself at the door like it could push through. Sylvain jumped back, but Ingrid barely moved. “They can’t get out,” she said, dismissively.

“You’re—why are you keeping them here like this?”

“You remember the prophecy Rhea was telling us about before everything happened at Garreg Mach?”

“Vaguely,” Sylvain said. Blood for blood rang in his head for some reason.

“She thinks Dimitri is her scion,” Ingrid said. “That he’s got to fight Edelgard, who is hosting Nemesis. If he doesn’t, the entire world will be swallowed up like Garreg Mach was.”

“Wait, she _thinks_?” Sylvain asked. “Seiros is alive? Or… undead, I guess, I don’t know how that whole daughter of the Goddess shit works.”

Ingrid nodded. “She’s been giving Dimitri directives for years and… helped us figure out how to get an edge on Edelgard and the Agarthans.”

Ingrid stopped in front of one of the cell doors. There was a very tired looking gargoyle inside. The demon’s eyes flashed on Ingrid and it almost rose up on its two limbs, but then weakly went back down again, even as she opened the door.

“There’s a reason we’re faster, stronger, and better,” Ingrid said, staring at the gargoyle. It had a metal shunt in it, trailing up to what looked like an IV—except liquid was coming out, not in. “She showed us how to use it. How to use our enemies against themselves.”

Oh, fuck. “You’re drinking _demon blood_?” Sylvain couldn’t help but notice the way the gargoyle looked at him. So damn defeated. He’d never felt so bad for something that could eat him before.

Ingrid turned around and the pupils of her eyes had completely overtaken the rest of it. Pure black from corner to corner. “You said you wanted an edge. There isn’t a better one. We take their power and throw it back at them. We win against hell. We get justice. We get victory.”

Sylvain backed out of the door on instinct. There was something truly scary and inhuman about the way Ingrid tilted her head, sizing him up with those fathomless voids she called eyeballs. No fucking wonder they were so fast.

“Ingrid that stuff will screw you over—how long have you been on it? If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll corrupt you. You know—you were fucking _there_ when Miklan turned into that thing!”

“Miklan was weak,” Ingrid said, sensibly, as her voice dropped two octaves. “You’re not. You could be a real asset, Sylvain. We need you.”

It was the first time in Sylvain’s life that he really fucking didn’t want to be needed. “I’m—fuck, I’m sorry,” Sylvain said and slammed the door closed on her, locking her in with the gargoyle. Shit. “I’ll tell Dedue to come down and let you out, I—but _fuck_ , Ingrid!”

His worry about leaving her in there was unnecessary. Ingrid punched the door so hard that the metal bent into the shape of a fist. Fuck fuck fuck. Sylvain turned around and made his way up, up and more up, as fast as his normal goddessdamned feet could carry him. It was luck that Dimitri wasn’t in to stop him. Sylvain was able to make it out of the compound and get to into Ruin before Ingrid could reach him.

He heard her strangled screaming of his name behind him as he drove off.

Sylvain kept driving, even as he dialed Felix without looking down. He held his cellphone up and rambled into the voicemail, “Felix—fuck, you were _right_. Call me the fuck back.”

Even if he didn’t, Sylvain was going to fucking find him.

**XXX**

“This better not be another useless lead,” Hubert said, icily.

Felix wondered if Hubert still thought he was intimidating after this many months of annoying Felix. “Why, are you going to eat me if it is?”

“Humans taste disgusting,” Hubert replied, easily.

Felix didn’t want to know how he knew that. The problem with having a lead that encompassed a mountain range, was that it encompassed the _entire_ fucking mountain range. He’d been searching on and off for months, sadly with Hubert’s help because Edelgard rightly didn’t trust him to throw her the key. No fucking way would he do that.

The only logical thing to do was to destroy it. Break the spine and shatter it. No key to hell, no opening hell. Why that was not a fucking thought that came to any of them was beyond Felix.

“Does the guy you possessed ever get bothered by being used like this?” Felix asked. He didn’t know when the hell he’d gained Sylvain’s propensity for needing to fill silences, but without Sylvain to do it, Felix found himself incapable of leaving them empty.

“He feels nothing,” Hubert said. “Which was true before I possessed him. He wanted his father killed and I assisted. We are in an agreement.”

Sounded like a hell of an agreement. Felix still couldn’t figure Hubert out. He was loyal to Edelgard, but hated the Agarthan demons and didn’t like the idea of Hell on Fódlan. Felix figured that’d be a picnic to demons.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Felix ignored it. He probably should’ve thrown it out ages ago. He only noticed because it was surprising he got reception up here. The buzzing had distracted him from the noise he should’ve heard—Hubert heard it, head snapping unnaturally fast to the west.

Felix didn’t react quickly enough. The bullrush that slammed him to the ground, also knocked his shotgun loose from his grip. Amateur hour. Fuck.

Felix pushed himself up, only fast enough to see Hubert overtaken and crushed into the black mist that meant he’d left Felix on his own. Fucking prick.

Felix’s shotgun was too far away from whatever the fuck had attacked them. The fur on its back looked like dyed Gwyllgi mane, but he’d never seen a three-headed hellhound that big. He drew his sword as he rose to standing, eye on his shotgun and the space between him and the…

It turned around.

“Dimitri?” Felix asked, frowning.

The thing pretending to be Dimitri with a furred cape snarled at him. “You’re _working_ for them?”

Fuck. “No, you fucking—” He barely made it out the way in the time as Dimitri rushed him again. He was fucking fast for how big he’d gotten. How was he that big? Was that an effect of the demon blood too? He was taller than Felix’s old man and far broader.

“The hell happened to your eye, boar?” Felix asked, trying to move towards the shotgun as Dimitri made another rush at him.

“I sacrificed for our cause—for our friends, I _will_ save them, Felix—even if I have to kill you to do it.”

“Glenn’s already dead,” Felix snapped. “You can’t save him. He’s not in limbo. He passed on. He wouldn’t stay around for anything.”

Not even Felix.

Felix ducked as Dimitri came at him again and he dove for the shotgun. He pulled it up and cocked it in Dimitri’s direction, shooting at point blank range as he came at him like a savage dog. It was filled with rock salt, which from his close hurt like a bitch—especially if someone was still sucking down demon blood like Felix suspected he was.

It clearly did hurt from the way Dimitri yelled. The thing was, Dimitri didn’t seem to _care_ that it hurt. He knocked the shotgun out of Felix’s hands and had him on the ground, hands around his neck, face bloody with salt scratches and a savage snarl. “I’m sorry she’s gotten to you,” Dimitri said, sounding actually upset as he choked the life out of Felix.

Felix kicked up, aiming for his nuts, but Dimitri moved too quickly and pinned his legs to the ground too. All Felix could do was reach aimlessly for anything to throw at his good eyeball, but the air was thinning—it was getting hard to see anything, except the blurry face of what was pretending to be his oldest friend. Blurred like this he almost looked like Dimitri again.

Dimitri was dead as Glenn. As dead as Felix was about to be.

His vision went black, but then air flooded his lungs, and the weight was off his body. Felix took painful, choked breaths, and tried to scramble to his feet, but barley made it up to sitting.

“Easy,” said an unfamiliar voice—no that wasn’t right. It was familiar, it was… just a long time ago. Felix hadn’t Hunted often with Byleth, but they’d always been skilled enough that he remembered them. Their hair and eyes were green now, but other than that they looked exactly like they had five years ago.

Felix coughed. His vision was focusing again, he looked over to where Dimitri’s body was lying limply in the dirt and ignored the stab of pain in his chest. The fucking asshole had almost strangled him to death—Felix wasn’t…

“He’s fine,” Byleth said. “Well… he’s going to have a hell of a headache, but that’s it.”

“I thought you were dead,” Felix said, rubbing his neck and not examining how he did or didn’t feel about Dimitri being alive.

Byleth shook their head. “I was… taking a nap.”

“You’re shitting me.”

They smiled, enigmatic.“The combination of demonic and celestial magic Edelgard and Seiros released sent me to Zahras—the Empty. I only just woke up.”

“That’s a pretty long nap,” Felix said. Five years worth of sleep. It hit him all at once what that lead he’d been following for months _actually_ meant. He laughed, but it hurt his bruised throat. He coughed again. “You’re the sword. The key Edelgard is looking for.”

Byleth nodded. “I think so. Seiros is looking for me too.” They frowned at Dimitri’s back. “She thinks I betrayed her. I don’t know if she’s been playing Dimitri and Edelgard up against each other or if the Agarthans are.”

A saint of legend whispering in Dimitri’s ear. That undoubtedly helped his already fractured mental state and demon blood chugging problem. Felix rubbed his neck and glared at him. “Asshole,” he said. “He should learn to think for himself.”

“Your phone’s ringing,” Byleth said.

Felix’s pocket was vibrating. He’d basically learned to tune it out so hard that he didn’t notice. He pulled it out of his pocket.

Byleth’s light green eyes were staring at him, expectantly.

Felix answered it. “Felix—fuck, you were _right_. Call me the fuck back.”

“Right about what?” Felix asked.

The noise he heard, followed by screeching meant Sylvain was driving. Why the fuck was he calling and driving. “Felix? Are you—fuck—did you pick _up_? Am I hallucinating? Did Ingrid actually kill me?”

“Did Ingrid _what_?”

Byleth held out their hand. Felix had no fucking idea why, but he handed them the phone.

“Hi Sylvain,” Byleth said. “Can you come pick us up. Route 67 down by the exit by Magdred Way.Yes, this is Byleth. No, I’m not dead. I’m not a shapeshifter. No. No, not that either. Not that—I mean I don’t think so, I’ve never checked.”

Felix snatched the phone back. “Just fucking come pick us up, idiot.” He hung up on him.

Byleth barely looked bothered. Felix rose to his feet and he hated himself, but he rolled Dimitri over to make sure he was still breathing.

“He’ll be okay if he detoxes from the demon blood,” Byleth said, behind Felix.

“Why would he do that?” Felix asked, staring down at him. He looked so much more like he did when he was younger when he was unconscious.

“If someone talked him down,” Byleth said. “Maybe.”

“You meet that someone, you let me know—considering he tried to fucking strangle me to death.”

Byleth didn’t reply. They started walking in the direction they’d told Sylvain to pick them up at—Felix followed.

He hadn't seen the giant dirty black sedan in a year and was surprised at how much he missed it.

**XXX**

Sylvain watched as the supposed reincarnation of the Goddess and/or host for Nemesis depending on which prophecy was right sucked down a chili dog. He pushed his own dinner towards them and Byleth nodded their thanks before taking it.

Sylvain swung his legs off the bench and walked over to Felix, who was staring out into the distance. He approached slow, though Felix didn’t flinch when he came behind him. “Hey,” Sylvain tried.

Felix didn’t turn towards him, but he also didn’t shrug Sylvain off when he put a hand on his shoulder. He’d brushed off all apologies and refused to tell Sylvain what the fuck happened to his neck, but he was still wearing Sylvain’s flannel shirt. That was something. Probably.

“Do you think they actually salted the body?” Felix asked, referring to his father. He hadn’t listened to Sylvain’s messages. Small favor that Sylvain got to tell him in person—fucking sucked it had to be now.

Sylvain sighed, squeezing Felix’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I think so, but I don’t know what to think after seeing Ingrid like that.”

“This is such bullshit,” Felix said.

It was hard to disagree with such an astute assessment. “Yeah.” Sylvain ran his tongue over his lips. “Felix?”

“Don’t lie to me again,” Felix said, then he turned slightly and Sylvain could see his eyes were bloodshot, like he’d been crying or—was that tired. “Ever.”

“I won’t,” Sylvain swore. “I’m sorry. You have to know how—”

Felix cut him off, dragging him down into a kiss. Sylvain felt like he’d taken the first breath of real air in a year. He wrapped his arms around Felix and held him as tightly as he could, kissing him back and drowning in it for as long as he could.

“I’m sorry too,” Felix said, quietly. “I shouldn’t have left. I told you I wouldn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Sylvain said, then corrected himself. “No, that’s a lie. It sucked.”

Felix scoffed a laugh and rested his forehead against Sylvain’s shoulder. Sylvain held him like that for as however long it took Byleth to finish both their dinners. They strolled over. “So,” Byleth said. “How do you feel about preventing the apocalypse?”

“Pretty good,” Sylvain said, still holding Felix.

Felix responded like Felix. “Why do you want to? Aren’t you the fell star, harbinger of doom?”

“Probably,” Byleth said. “But I’m pretty sure my dad would’ve been on the side of _not_ letting hell swallow Fódlan, so I’m inclined to follow his lead.”

“Good enough for me,” Sylvain said. Felix sighed, but didn’t disagree. That was about as good as they’d get.

Sylvain was able to relay the information he’d absorbed from Dimitri’s giant library. They used that information to track down even more ancient prophetic information. The prophecies were wide and varied, but they all had the same date. It was also becoming clear that the date was more than a date… it was a location.

The location of the empty crater where Garreg Mach used to sit.

“I hate dramatic irony,” Sylvain said when they’d found that out. Then he said it again, along with “Motherfucker,” when they arrived at Garreg Mach on the day of, because there it was… dramatic fucking irony.

Better known as Miklan, surrounded by Agarthan demons, using him to open the portal to hell.

**XXXXX**

**NOW**

**XXXXX**

“It’s not that bad,” Sylvain said, next to him, tilting his head to get a better look at the portal his dumbfuck brother had opened to hell.

Felix was charmingly annoyed. “It’s the _Apocalypse_.”

Sylvain shrugged casually. “Yeah, but other than that.”

“Hmm,” Byleth said. Their hands were on their hips and they watched the fight that had started before they’d gotten here. Things were spilling out of the portal—including Necrodragons—being fought by Hunters and Demons alike. Even if the saturation of the sky wasn’t being sucked into nothing, the amount of violence erupting around them was pretty ominous.

Especially the very, very big fight of the huge white dragon against some strange husk thing that kind of looked like Edelgard if Sylvain admitted he needed glasses.

“We shouldn’t have stopped for coffee,” Sylvain said.

“I don’t know if we could’ve prevented it, getting here earlier,” Byleth said. That was charitable of them. Sylvain was pretty sure if he’d done what he could to make sure his asshole brother _stayed_ in hell then he couldn’t open the fucking gate back into it. “All the prophecies ended here. Therefore it was going to happen.”

“These prophecies are bullshit,” Felix said. He was staring off into the distance, not at the scary giant dragon fight, but at the broken remnant of one of the buildings next to Garreg Mach where a figure was cutting through a swath of demons on their own. Sylvain didn’t need glasses to figure out who that was and why Felix was looking.

“We need to close the portal,” Byleth said. They looked at Sylvain with a long, searching expression that gave him the creeps, and then frowned and turned back around. “I’m going to try and talk Edelgard and Rhea down.”

“You’re going to get in the middle of _that_?” Sylvain balked, pointing at the fight between the actual dragon and hegemon husk.

“Yep,” Byleth said.

“You’ll die,” Felix said. Always the optimist.

“Maybe,” Byleth said. Their usually blank features became serious and they narrowed their eyes before walking towards the meanest chick fight in existence. Or maybe the end of existence if that portal stayed open much longer.

Why had Byleth even looked at Sylvain when they’d said that? What could _he_ do to close it? It wasn’t like…

Oh.

“ _How_ do we close it?” Felix asked, turning towards him.

Sylvain had sworn not to lie to him. He had a good run of sticking to that for almost a week. “I don’t know,” Sylvain said, memorizing every inch of Felix while he could. “I do know you want to go talk Dimitri down.”

“Like I can,” Felix scoffed.

“You _can_ ,” Sylvain said. Then his lips quirked up. “And if you can’t maybe you can lure Dimitri this way and let him run his giant head into the portal or something. Or Ingrid could lecture it closed!”

Felix hesitated, but Sylvain could tell how much he wanted to. “Go,” he said, turning his quirked lips into an easy smile. “I’ll stay here and make sure nothing else comes through.” He lifted his shotgun up and rested it on his shoulder. “Or that it doesn’t make it very far if it does.”

“You shouldn’t be here by yourself,” Felix said. “What if Miklan comes back?”

“A family reunion? Why not!” Sylvain said. Then he smiled at Felix and kissed him. Once, quick, shallow—nothing like the sweeping goodbye he wanted that would tip him off. “Go knock some sense into His Royal Blondness, huh?”

Felix stared at him, searching—but Sylvain was an expert at the fake smile, the casual ease. And Felix clearly really wanted to go, so if he saw any crack in it—he didn’t show it. He nodded and turned around. “I’ll be back. Don’t die.”

“No worries, Felix,” Sylvain said to his back. “We promised in spit.”

He kept smiling—waited until Felix was far off enough that he started to disappear into the ruins of that old building—before he stopped. Sylvain looked the way where Byleth had gone. The air was starting to fog and turn a weird shade of green. Hopefully that was a good thing.

He looked in the direction Miklan had gone. There was a very familiar body he’d clocked when they came up this way. Dead in the distance. As stupid as a demon as he was as a human, apparently. Too fucking dumb to figure out they’d use him and then discard him as quick so he couldn’t close the portal.

Sylvain sighed and took a knife out. It was one of Felix’s. He wrapped his hand around the sharp blade and then dragged it through—slicing his palm until thick, wet drops of blood dripped onto the ground.

Gautier blood.

He always thought Hunting was in his blood. He stared at Miklan, dead in the distance. Their blood.

Now Sylvain got it—why that phrase in the prophecy always stuck out to him.

Blood for Blood.

Sylvain, a smile on his face—finally feeling useful, walked straight into hell.

**XXX**

Felix did what he always did when his back was against the wall. He pushed off the wall and let himself be pissed off. There was recognition on Dimitri’s face at least. Felix’s neck still had finger shaped bruises. It was probably too much to hope for that Dimitri looked guilty as he saw them.

“Hey, asshole.”

“You’re alive,” Dimitri said, flatly. The one eye that was visible was darkened to the point that he couldn’t see any blue and barely any white. There were dead Demons splayed around him in various states of dismemberment. 

“Not for lack of you trying,” Felix said, just as flatly. “Sure Dad would’ve loved that. Thanks for fucking telling me, by the way.”

Dimitri looked away from him. At least some of him was maybe still in there.

“Doesn’t matter,” Felix said. “He liked you better anyway.”

“That’s not true,” Dimitri said.

“The hell it isn’t,” Felix snapped. “You know I fucking—I _knew_ you weren’t right and I—” Something leaden weighed down his chest—something sharp and painful and heavy since he’d found out his father died. “I should’ve stayed and _made_ sure everyone else knew too.”

He shouldn’t have run from it.

Dimitri looked back at him. Was his eye a little less black? It was hard to tell. “Felix… you don’t understand… El is…”

“Is what?” Felix asked. “Working with the fuckers who killed your parents and my brother? Yeah, no shit.” He laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as manic as he felt. “She could be your fucking blood sister with how dumb her decisions are. Have you _seen_ what she turned into?”

They could both see from here. The rampaging husk of the girl who used to roll her eyes at them as they tried to fight for dominance to pick the channel change. She would take the remote and decide what they were watching while Dimitri and Felix were busy rolling around.

“It’s… Felix you don’t—”

“ _No_ ,” Felix said, stepping closer. Close enough to get choked again. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand that Glenn would _never_ come back. He would never do that to either of us. You don’t understand that you’re putting everyone in danger like this—this war you’re fighting, it’s lead to this!” He gestured to all around them. “You didn’t prevent anything, Dimitri. You _brought_ the Apocalypse.”

Dimitri stared up at the orange tinged sky through the crack in what was left of the ceiling. His hands were gripped into loose fists and shaking at his sides.

Felix’s throat felt tight. “You’re the only family I have left, you fucking beast.”

“Why did you… why were you working with her?” Dimitri asked. He sounded more like himself, or maybe Felix was being choked again and the oxygen loss was leading to hallucinations.

“She’s your sister. She was doing the same fucking thing you were doing. Working with shit she shouldn’t, so she could prevent the disaster neither of you did anything but make happen.”

“They _killed_ them,” Dimitri said. He looked younger with his face like this…lost… but maybe he was ready to finally be found again. “All of them. They died screaming. I can… I can still hear them.”

Felix reached out, his hand shook—he felt like a fucking idiot—and he gripped Dimitri’s arm. “So let’s go Hunt some demons.”

Dimitri was so much taller than he used to be. It was jarring as he rose to full height, staring down at Felix. His eye was still too black, but it was also… a little blue. “I almost killed you.”

“Yeah and I will kick you in the nuts for that later.” Felix handed Dimitri the revolver he’d taken from Glenn’s things and unsheathed his lucky sword. “You coming or what?”

Dimitri stared at the revolver in his hand. Then he spun the barrel and nodded once before following.

**X**

**X**

Felix was too busy fighting Agarthan demons with Dimitri to notice when the sky stopped changing colors. He was too busy convincing Dimitri not to give into his self-inflicted bloody addiction and suck them all dry to notice that Byleth had _somehow_ actually talked Edelgard down into human and Seiros… into flying heavenward and home.

Felix was too busy to notice that the gate to hell had closed.

He was too busy to think straight and realize _how_ that could have happened. Too busy to realize that Miklan had opened it and Miklan was (like the rest of the demons were) dead now. Too busy to realize that there was only one other person who could have closed it.

“Blood for blood,” Byleth said, frowning back in the direction Sylvain had been. They were bleeding themselves, holding a tired Edelgard upright.

“ _No_ ,” Felix said.

There was no sign of Sylvain or the gate. Felix’s fingers bled as he pointlessly dug into the ground where it had been. He slammed his fists into the dirt as if that would do anything. He cried, like he hadn’t in years. None of it brought Sylvain back.

Later, someone told Felix that Sylvain died bravely. That he’d saved the world from the Apocalypse.

Felix had been too busy throwing a punch at that someone to pay attention to whose nose he broke.

**X**

**X**

It took Felix three months.

Two to find the diagram and instructions and another month to find all the supplies. He really hated the goat killing part—but did it anyway. There was a thought about fate and prophecy when Felix noticed that the diagram looked a lot like a Crest design—like the Gautier Crest.

He didn’t think about it too long. Instead he flicked his thumb so that the metal lighter in his hand lit. Then he dropped it to the ground—it flared to life, covering the pattern of blood in flame and turning the design dark red, then putrid green, then finally a sharp orange.

This portal was smaller. It looked like it had been physically torn through the air, thinner than the last one. It looked like Felix had used his hands to rip the universe apart with barely enough enough room to walk through.

It was still _enough_ room.

“Fucking prick,” Felix muttered, as he stepped sideways into the portal.

And followed Sylvain straight into hell.

**Author's Note:**

> much later, when everyone has beer & tea, byleth tries to explain that when someone reads into their long stare, it's not a mystical knowledge, they're just bad with social cues--so no of course they weren't telling sylvain to jump into a portal while bleeding WHY would they do that?
> 
> Mego made art of [Felix in only Sylvain's flannel](https://twitter.com/avarice017/status/1313004726934409216).


End file.
